


Hydrophobia

by Oryx_Gazella



Category: Don't Hug Me I'm Scared (Short Film)
Genre: DHMIS, Padlock, this ones less shippy but theyre still clearly hatedating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-19
Updated: 2014-02-19
Packaged: 2018-01-13 01:25:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1207684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oryx_Gazella/pseuds/Oryx_Gazella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony and Paige have a nice calm day with their roommates and no one gets hurt at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hydrophobia

**Author's Note:**

> someone on tumblr asked for this im absolved of all blame  
> just kidding im a horrible person i am sorry  
> heads up for non-consensual violence-abuse here   
> also for my purposes im writing harry manny and robin as humanized and not puppets  
> i mean if you want to see them as puppets thats cool too

The air was heavy.  Just knowing _those two_ were in the house was more than enough to put all three of them on edge.  Actually, having them out of sight was worse; entering a room to find that it had been trapped somehow wasn’t uncommon.  Tony and Paige were so quiet when they were plotting something, and the house was almost maddeningly soundless now; only the monotonous ticking of Tony’s precious clocks broke the silence.

            But still, dwelling on it wouldn’t change a thing.  Sometimes pretending everything was normal, pretending that two monsters weren’t lurking in the house, could offer some momentary illusion.  One could forget, if only for a second, that unavoidable, excruciating pain was in the near future.

            They all had their own methods of escapism.  Harry flipped on the TV, Robin buried his nose in a book, and Manny gazed out the window and daydreamed.

 

 

* * *

 

There was no tension between them as Tony and Paige walked down the hall, their steps unconsciously in sync. 

“How do you want to split it?”

            “Well, you took all of them last time, let me get two.”

            Paige shrugged, smiling.  “That’s fine, they usually distract each other from concentrating on their _projects_ anyway.” 

 

 

* * *

 

            They all were engrossed in their own distractions, not speaking.  It was always like this when they got home again; an uncomfortable ‘settling in’ period, keeping quiet to mask how scared they were for the sake of the others.  Robin stood up, and walked to the bookshelf to choose something more immersive to read.  The other two didn’t pay much mind to the movement in the room.

            Robin laid his hand on Harry’s shoulder.

            “What’s up-?” Harry’s turned to look at his shoulder first, the words an automatic reaction to his friend trying to get his attention.

            The hand was wearing a pristine white glove.

            Everyone seemed to freeze at once.  The grip on Harry’s shoulder tightened.  _How did he get in here without anyone seeing him?_

            Robin flew into action first, bolting out of the room.  The tall, frightening _thing_ was between him and the path to the front door, so he made a break towards the back of the house instead.  Manny tried to run too, only to be stopped by Tony roughly grabbing the back of his collar and yanking him off his feet.  Crashing, thumping, and choked yelling from the kitchen meant Paige had been waiting there, and Robin wasn’t going to come back with help.

Tony leaned down to Harry, as he dragged a struggling Manny closer. 

“You three were gone for such a _long time_.  We have a lot of catching up to do.”  He cooed.

Harry couldn’t move, much less form any form of response.  His heart was pounding, and he felt slightly dizzy.  Regardless of how many times this happened, it was always absolutely terrifying.  It didn’t matter that they had all agreed Tony was less painful than Paige, the visceral reaction was the same; paralyzing fear. 

The hand slid off his shoulder, and he inhaled for the first time in what felt like hours.  His breath caught again almost immediately as a cold blade was pressed to his throat.

“Up.” Tony commanded.  Harry stood; the sword at his neck moved with Tony as he straightened out, not waiting for him to react.

Harry was directed toward the kitchen, Manny stumbling along behind them, trying desperately to break away.  The metal was pressing against his throat _just_ hard enough to threaten to break the skin, without actually drawing blood.

Yet.

They reached the kitchen; there was no sign of Robin, aside from a knocked over chair and the pieces of a shattered pitcher that had been on the counter.  Tony kicked the door closed and threw Manny across the room; he slammed into cabinet, and lied there, dazed. 

“Fill up the sink, would you?”  Tony called over to him.  “Don’t bother trying to get out, the other door’s already been locked.”

Harry watched as Manny pulled himself to his feet, shaking, and turned on the water.  He was about to cry.  Harry wanted to try and reassure him, but he was too afraid to speak while that sharp edge was biting at his throat.  At any rate, what could he possibly say to help?  It wasn’t going to be alright, he couldn’t do anything to keep him safe, and neither of them were going to get away.  Tony walked him over to the sink as Manny backed away; Harry glanced down at his wavering reflection.  He quickly looked away, not liking his fearful expression.  The only sound in the kitchen was the faucet running while the water level rose. 

Muffled shrieking began emanating from upstairs, and Harry couldn’t help but start trembling against the now-warmed metal.

The blade jerked up, slicing into the skin on the underside of his jaw.

“You shouldn’t worry about your friend, I’m sure he’s _fine_.”  Blood slipped down the black sword, over Harry’s neck, into the water.  “You, however…”  Tony grabbed a fistful of hair, close to the skull, gripping painfully.  The sword fell away from his skin.  The faucet turned off.

He looked to his friend, unable to keep the panic off his face.  Manny was plastered to the wall, frozen.  Harry’s head was forced down toward the sink, stopping right above the water, his nose just touching the cold surface.  He stared into his terrified eyes for a split second before his head was shoved into the water.

Tony held him under effortlessly.  His arm didn’t even move as Harry thrashed and clawed at his hand.  He glanced over at Manny, smiling slightly, not bothered by the wild kicking or the bubbling, muted screaming.  The water splashing to the floor was tinged pink now, blood still flowing from the slash under Harry’s chin.

Manny couldn’t keep from starting to cry as Harry’s body jerked, water getting sucked into his lungs.  Hands slammed on the counter, panicking more than ever.

His head was pulled up.  Harry gasped; a rough, ugly sound.  Tony let go of him, giving him a slight push away from the counter, and he collapsed to the floor in front of Manny.  He gagged, choking, hacking up water.  Manny fell to his knees, pulling his friend up, not knowing how to get him to breathe again.

“Now,” Tony loomed over the two of them, a grin spreading onto his face “ _tell me how long that took_.”

Manny’s head snapped up.  _How long_?  It felt like hours, but that wasn’t right.  He wasn’t prepared for this.  What was going to happen when he got it wrong? 

“Quickly now.”  He sounded so eager.  Manny was acutely aware of how Tony readjusted his grip on the sword and took a step closer.

“T-two minutes?” he guessed low, knowing it couldn’t have been anywhere near as long as he thought.  Harry continued to desperately cough up water.

Tony’s expression changed from a condescending grin to shock.  “You…”

Manny’s heart skipped a beat.  He got it right?!  Maybe Tony would leave them alone; he adhered to his own rules, didn’t he?  He was a perfectionist and couldn’t bear to cheat…right?

“You’re…absolutely wrong!”  Tony laughed, snapping out of the fake disappointment.  “One minute, twenty six seconds.” 

A hand wrapped around Manny’s throat before he could begin to get away, yanking him to his feet.

“Allow me to show you how long two minutes is, so you don’t make the same mistake again.” 

His chest slammed against the edge of the counter.  He struggled, trying to push himself away, hands slipping on the already-soaked surface.  The grip on the back of his neck held fast, no matter how much he panicked against it. Tony hummed softly, as if he were doing some mundane chore.

“S-stop-” Harry rasped from the floor, interrupted by another hacking fit.  Manny and Tony both looked down; he was grasping the leg of Tony’s pants, still unable to get to his feet.

“D-drown me inst-stead don-“ his words cut off again, the pain of flooded lungs bringing tears to his eyes as he choked.

Tony chuckled lightly at the pleading.  Without looking away from Harry, he shoved Manny’s head into the pinkish water.  Harry made a desperate, miserable noise and pulled at Tony’s leg. 

Tony kicked him away, turning his mildly amused attention back to the person he was currently drowning, as the other one collided against the table.  Harry clutched at the edge of the table, pulling himself up.  He doubled over, leaning onto the table and coughing up more water.  He had to get over there; he couldn’t directly stop Tony, but he might be able to be a better target-

“Ugh, _Tony_!” the annoyed call from upstairs made them both look.  Manny’s face pulled up, gasping for air; he hadn’t inhaled any water.

“Yes, dear?”  He called back

“He quit early again!”

Tony sighed, smiling and shaking his head.  He dropped Manny to the ground and kneeled down, grabbing his hair to force Manny to pay attention.

“You stay right here, and I might be easier on you when I get back.” He murmured, and let his head fall back to the floor.  Manny lied there and coughed, trying to catch his breath and stabilize his heart rate.

Harry flinched as Tony looked to him, starting to recover but still half-lying on the table.

“As for you…” he strode over, sword in hand. Harry stumbled, trying desperately to put distance between them. 

Tony grabbed the collar of his soaked shirt, stopping his escape.  In one easy motion, he slid the ragged blade across the back of Harry’s knees; shearing muscle and audibly scraping bone.

Harry screamed in a hoarse voice, sliced tendons dropping him to the floor immediately.  He tried to get up, panicking, palms slipping in the blood gushing from his legs; Harry began hyperventilating from pain and fear.

Tony gave the two of them a friendly smile before turning to go upstairs and help Paige out.

The metallic reek of blood was overwhelming at the top of the stairs.  He pushed Paige’s door open, to find her nudging Robin’s prone body with her foot.

He was missing an eye, and it looked like Paige had tried to paint a replacement on the back of empty socket, though the new “sclera” had turned pink where the white pigment mixed with blood.  Patches of skin on his sides were missing in a spiraling pattern, ribs visible in places.

“What did it?”  Tony asked, pulling his gloves off.  None of the injuries he could see should’ve been fatal.

“I cut out his tongue, but I guess I went too far back, because he bled out.”  Paige lifted Robin’s head, his mouth lolling open to lazily drip blood from the ragged stump where his tongue had been.

“Paige, you really should be more careful with them.”  Tony gently touched Robin’s cold, ruined face.  “You know they’re not as durable as us...  Well, durable as _me_ , anyway.” 

Paige’s eyes rolled at that, but she’d have to wait to retaliate, or else he wouldn’t help her.

The changes happened slowly at first, almost undetectably; the blood on the floor was starting to disappear.  Once he gained momentum, however, Robin’s body began repair itself quickly as time was forced backwards; Robin shuddered back to life, his tongue intact again.  His sides were next, skin flowing back over the exposed muscle.  The blood on the floor was almost gone at this point, and his eye regrew last, blinking and looking around rapidly.

Paige leaned down, smiling at her revived victim “I’m so glad you’re up!” she cheered.

 Tony let go, and Robin quickly half-crawled away from them, huddling in the corner of Paige’s room.  

 “Thank you Tony.” She sang as he stood up.

“Of course, love.” He replied, leaving the room as Paige turned back to Robin.

The hushed pleading was audible before the stairs ended.  Tony reached the first floor to find Manny trying to drag a dazed, groggy Harry out of the house, leaving a trail of blood into the living room.  How valiant.  Manny looked up, eyes wide, and pulled harder on his crippled friend.  

A grin spread across Tony’s face, slowly approaching the desperate scene.  “I thought I told you both to stay right where you were…”

**Author's Note:**

> headcanon that harry is rly protective of the other two   
> also that would be how theyre not fuckin dead yet


End file.
